“I don’t understand you Earthans at all,” Jaeg said, inflating a third bladder in order to rise up to the spaceship window. Earth was still in view, though it was slowly shrinking amongst the black. “You have one of the most gorgeous planets in the galaxy, yet you all are constantly wandering away from it.”
Lucky allowed himself a chuckle and stepped closer to the bundle of flesh and tentacles that was his co-pilot. He placed what he hoped was a comforting hand on Jaeg and watched her soft flesh change color at his touch. “We often don’t understand ourselves. You’re one to talk. I hear the Ithilpods are notoriously agoraphobic. Hardly the stock I would expect the best co-pilot in the sky would spawn from.”
The viscous outer skin on Jaeg’s face took on a purplish hue, which was the closest she ever came to a blush. “What can I say? I’m exceptional.” A balloon of skin billowed out from a crevice in her side, and she was looking Lucky directly in the face. “You, however, are not answering my question.”
Lucky could see himself mirrored in Jaeg’s multiple eyes. Each one was about the size of his head, and the collection dwarfed the body behind them. “You don’t get a lot of light from your sun, do you, Jaeg?”
“No. And you’re stalling.”
Lucky watched several copies of himself look incredulous. “I am not. There’s a point here. See, our sun’s only medium-sized, but we’re close to it. It provides us with a lot of light, so much so that we’re lit longer than we aren’t.” Jaeg cricked her neck; Lucky was used to reading that as a nod. She wasn’t so fond of the tinted suit she wore on Earth’s surface that she forgot why she put it on. The ship was no longer lit with light in the UV spectrum so that she wouldn’t have to wear it while on board, either. “So, darkness, darkness is unusual. And most of us, well, we feel the need to go into darkness, to find out what’s in there. Space is the largest patch of darkness we’ve ever seen. So naturally, we have to go see what’s out there.”
“Even if you don’t know what could be out there?”
“Especially if we don’t know what’s out there.” Lucky shrugged, and wondered if his movements translated as easily as hers. “That may not make much sense…”
“No, it does. I understand completely, Lucky,” Jaeg turned away from the rear window and floated toward the cockpit. “I’m a romantic myself.”